The FLC plans to release the first annual progress report early in 2012. (Federal fiscal year 2011 is the first full implementation year for this strategy. Fiscal Year 2011 ends on September 30, 2011.)

By December 2011, the Federal Leadership Committee will establish their first set (and states will establish 2nd set) of two-year milestones covering calendar years 2012 and 2013. Increasing government accountability: To increase accountability, federal agencies will establish milestones every two years for actions to meet environmental goals. These will complement the two-year milestones of the states. Every year, agencies will also issue an action plan outlining work to be done in the next 12 months and issue a report to evaluate progress.http://archive.chesapeakebay.net/pressrelease/EC_2009_allmilestones.pdf

At the Principals’ Staff Committee, the EPA Reaffirms Federal-State Commitment to Establish Bay pollution diet, or Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), and will ensure “pollution diet” and actions to meet it stay on an aggressive pace.

EPA provided the six states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the District of Columbia with rigorous expectations for jurisdictions to reduce pollution in streams, rivers, and the Bay to meet water quality standards. EPA’s expectations fulfill the mandate of the EO, which calls for a new accountability framework that guides federal, state, and local water quality restoration efforts.http://archive.chesapeakebay.net/pubs/calendar/45645_11-10-09_Handout_4_10524.pdf

The Chesapeake Executive Council pledged to get all Bay management mechanisms necessary to restore the Bay in place by 2025. Part of this new strategy to speed up the pace of Bay restoration and become more accountable included the setting of specific two-year milestones for each jurisdiction to reduce pollution to the Bay and its rivers. These milestones will also contain “contingencies” and “consequences” for falling short.http://www.chesapeakebay.net/ec2009.aspx?menuitem=36058

President Obama signed Executive Order (EO) 13508 on Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration. The EO has brought the Chesapeake Bay Program to a new level of interagency coordination and cooperation. The EO established a Federal Leadership Committee for the Chesapeake Bay chaired by EPA and including six other federal agencies. The Chesapeake Bay Program Office is supporting implementation of the new EO.http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Executive-Order-Chesapeake-Bay-Protection-and-Restoration/

The Agency submitted a report to Congress summarizing the Chesapeake Action Plan. The plan was intended to enhance coordination of and accountability for the full spectrum of federal, state, local, and private partners’ actions to restore the watershed and the Bay. http://cap.chesapeakebay.net/rtc.htm

Federal officials from 25 agencies and departments signed the Agreement of Federal Agencies on Ecosystem Management in the Chesapeake Bay. This document outlined specific goals and commitments by federal agencies on federal lands, as well as new cooperative efforts by federal agencies.

In the 1992 Amendments to the 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement, Bay Program partners agreed to attack nutrients at their source: upstream in the Bay’s tributaries. The Bay Program also began reevaluating its Basinwide Toxics Reduction Strategy to better understand the impact chemical contaminants have on Bay life.http://www.chesapeakebay.net/content/publications/cbp_12507.pdf

In the 1987 Chesapeake Bay Agreement, the Executive Council set a goal to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous entering the Bay by 40 percent by the year 2000. Agreeing to numeric goals with specific deadlines was unprecedented in 1987, but the practice has become a hallmark of the Bay Program.http://www.chesapeakebay.net/content/publications/cbp_12510.pdf

The Chesapeake Bay Program, a unique voluntary partnership, is established with the signing of the first Chesapeake Bay Agreement by Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia; the District of Columbia; the Chesapeake Bay Commission; and the EPA. The agreement establishes the Chesapeake Executive Council as the chief policy-making authority in the Bay region. Executive Council members are the governors of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the mayor of the District, the EPA administrator, and the chair of the Chesapeake Bay Commission. In December of 1983, the original Chesapeake Bay Agreement, a simple, one-page pledge by the partners to work together to restore the Bay, was signed in 1983 by the Chesapeake Executive Council.http://www.chesapeakebay.net/content/publications/cbp_12512.pdf